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Hotel bookings via mobile apps soar, OTAs are the beneficiaries

June 28, 2012 | Hotel Marketing

New research suggests that U.S. travel bookings through smartphones may have doubled in the past year, as more travelers buy the devices and more suppliers and travel intermediaries produce a broader range of travel apps.

As a result of smartphone's and tablet's snowballing popularity, mobile has been having a huge impact in the travel-shopping arena. In 2011, 16% of those surveyed by PhoCusWright used their mobile device to shop for trips, up from 11% in 2010, while the percentage of those shopping through print publications fell from 18% to 13%.

At stake is what’s expected to be a growing chunk of the expanding U.S. online travel market. Annual U.S. online leisure bookings, which account for about 40% of total bookings, will jump to about $124 billion in 2012, from $109 billion last year, PhoCusWright predicted in a report released last November.

And while PhoCusWright estimated that mobile accounted for less than 1% of total travel bookings last year, that figure could jump to more than 4% of total bookings by the end of this year.

Still to be determined is what impact the growth of mobile bookings will have on the battle for distribution share between suppliers and intermediaries. Smartphone users without the luxury of a large screen, full keyboard and multiple windows will be more likely to book through OTA apps that enable one-stop bookings for hotels, car rentals and airplane reservations.

Get the full story at Travel Weekly

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